24 Hour Pulled Pork

This has to have been one of my most successful experiments ever! I’m not very good at slow cooking, not because it’s difficult, but because I am horribly impatient and assume that my kitchen has set fire if I leave it. This week however, I pushed passed my neuroses and actually left the house for five hours whilst the pork was going (annoying my friends every hour or so wondering aloud whether my house is still standing). I can’t quite describe how happy I was when the pork fell apart (well, it would have were it not for the string holding it together) as I lifted it from its roasting tin. I served it in ciabatta buns, apple slaw and barbecued corn on the cob, perfection!

Ingredients

Shoulder of Pork (about 2.5 kilos fed 5 of us with a portion left over)

Dry Rub

2 ½ teaspoons hot paprika

1 teaspoon salt

3 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3-5 sprigs of fresh thyme

1 heaped teaspoon cumin

 6-8 cloves

Baste

150ml cider vinegar

150ml white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons honey

1 apple

1 teaspoon chilli flake

1 cinnamon stick (about 5cm long)

Salt/pepper

10pm the night before

Mix all the dry rub ingredients together other than the cloves (crush the garlic and pick leaves off thyme). Put the pork in a roasting tray and rub all over (most pork comes with its fat already scored, if it isn’t then you will have to do this before rubbing). It will seem like you can’t get any more on but keep going and cover as much as you can with it. Poke the cloves into the fat.  Once you’ve used the entire mixture, cover in cling film and refrigerate overnight.

Peel and core the apple and whizz it up in a food processor or hand blender. 

Add to all the other baste ingredients and leave in the fridge overnight.

11am the next morning (to be ready for 8pm)

Take the pork out the fridge and allow to rest for at least 30 minutes.

Turn the oven to 130 C or 250 f, using an oven thermometer is really useful here, and place a deep ovenproof dish filled with water at the bottom of the oven. 

Baste the pork (slop some of the vinegar mixture over it) and put it in the oven. You want to baste every 45 minutes- hour, however, if you wish to leave the house then add up to half the baste to the bottom of the pan and a little water (use your discretion as to how much depending on how long you are leaving for).

After 8 hours your pork will be ready, it may look very blackened but this is just the baste that has caramelised, don’t be scared! Take the pork out the roasting tray and pull apart(so that’s where the name’s from!) or shred with a couple of forks. It should easily come apart in mouth-watering chunks.

‘De-glaze’ the roasting tray by putting it on the hob on high and adding water, mixing to ensure all the saucy bits(and the bits on the bottom of the tray) are mixed in. Bring to the boil and reduce slightly before adding the pork to serve.